Washington-Picture Palooza!

Washington - Part 2

Today we paid for a bus tour that lasted for the entire day. It went all around the city and you could get off wherever you wanted, walk around a bit, and then just catch the next bus that came through. It was a great idea, and I’m really glad that we did it because it was a good way to familiarize ourselves with where everything was. The first stop we made was at Union Station. All I can say is wow. I expected big, but this was big enough to be its own city. And marvelous. I tell ya, DC doesn’t do anything on a small scale. Everything is mega-sized and not one detail, no matter how small, is overlooked. Of course it was a working train station, so there were plenty of travelers, in addition to an entire floor of clothing stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. We ate at a Chicago pizza place that had some fabulous foods-including a deep dish chocolate chip cookie dessert. 

Next stop was Arlington Cemetery. To say that it humbled and moved me would be a great understatement. I’ve always heard of Arlington, but to get the history behind it was fascinating. For those of you who don’t know the story-there is a mansion overlooking Washington in the middle of the cemetery. It was built as a memorial for George Washington by his adopted grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. He and his wife constructed it and lived there for their entire lives. After they passed away, their daughter married Robert E. Lee and they lived there until the start of the Civil War. Once that started Lee moved to Virginia to take control of his army and then later went to fight for the other side. At the point Lee’s wife and family had already been forced from the home, and in order to ensure they would never return since he was now considered a traitor, the remains of 1800 soldiers were buried in the rose garden. The family never returned and the government ended up purchasing the plantation from the family for far less than it was worth. Because there were already so many graves, they opted to make it a big cemetery. 

Although it was sad to see all of the tombstones, it made me feel really, really proud of America’s history. At some points, I could turn in a complete circle and see graves on every side of me for as far away as I could see. These people gave their lives for me to be freely walking through this place. What better way could we honor all the soldiers buried there than by visiting their graves, reading their names, and mouthing a silent “thank you”. I’m so grateful we have a place like this to go and pay our respect. If you ever visit Washington and decide to do nothing else, be sure to go here. 

While we were at Arlington we were able to see the changing of the guards. Wow. This ceremony is performed at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There is a soldier buried from WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. These three represent all of the soldiers who died during these wars, and their tomb is guarded 24/7, 365 days a year. There was a certain amount of hustle and bustle from all the tourists, but as people began to arrive to wait for the ceremony, talking went to whispers. No one needed to tell you how sacred it was there-you could feel it. As we sat there looking around, I could feel myself tearing up. I took a moment to say a quick prayer for our military, and to be thankful for Michael’s safety. The ceremony was awesome. Basically, a commanding officer inspects the soldier who is about to step to post. He inspects his uniform, and his rifle, and then the officer walks in step with the one whose place he will be taking for a bit, until finally, he is left alone. Josh and I were reading about these soldiers-and to be able to guard here is one of the highest honors a soldier can have. It’s serious stuff. 

Here are pictures from the cemetery:

Next stop was Iwo Jima. Most of you have probably seen pictures of this. There was even a movie released about it a couple of years ago. It’s a statue of the famous photograph of 4 Marines raising the American flag after capturing the island of Iwo Jima in Japan. This battle produced some of the heaviest fighting of WWII. 
 
Here is the original photo:

Here is the statue:

We did quite a few other things as well, but the ones above were the main events for the day. Today I learned a valuable lesson. No matter how un-cool it may look, tennis shoes should be worn when hiking long distances to avoid monster sized blisters that will hurt for the rest of the week.

Washington-Part 1

So I finally got the trip information from Josh’s work laptop, and as promised, will give you all the good details about vacation!

The first day after a ridiculously loooong road trip-ten hours to be exact-we made it! However, right away we realized we goofed. We opted to drive to save the extra it would take us to fly; however, once we arrived we realized our hotel charges $35 a night to park, and there are no other overnight options anywhere in the vicinity of us. So as it turns out, we could have flown for the same price. Shucks. Once we parked the car in front of valet, our bags were unloaded by a very nice gentleman and loaded onto one of the pretty silver carts. I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to need a cart, so I was quite excited about that. The hotel that we are staying in is incredibly modern but very beautiful and relaxing. Nothing in our house is ultra-modern so it seemed appropriate to escape from reality with a totally different setting than we’re used to. I was blown away when I walked into our room and saw this:

We sure made the right decision for a hotel! (obviously since it didn’t take us long to get comfortable…) You can see it in the picture, but there is a leather canopy that our bed sits in that stretches the entire length of the room. There are lights inside of the canopy as well as behind it, so you can adjust them to whatever is comfortable. The shower is a walk – in, and doesn’t have a door at all. It’s a tube that you can see from the bed. It’s completely private and although it looks as if you would be able to see someone while they were in, that isn’t the case at all. Here is a picture of the outside of the shower:

No sight-seeing today. We’re exhausted from the trip and are just having a quiet night of resting in preparation for a busy, busy week.

We're Back!

I feel like I have been gone forever, but I so wasn’t ready to come home! Washington was absolutely amazing! I wrote some very detailed stuff each day about what we did and saw, and I plan to post it for you guys to see, but it’s on the hubby’s laptop which he took to work. Darn it.

One thing I didn’t anticipate while we were gone is for the breaker in the garage to flip. For those of you who don’t know, I live in TN. It has been in the 90s all week outside, and my garage is not cooled, so with the door shut and no traffic in and out I’m sure it got to be well over 100 in there. We have a refrigerator in the garage, and the freezer was completely FULL of meat. Do you know where this is going?! Yeah. We got in a little after midnight on Saturday, and could smell this foul odor before we opened the door. Once we opened it, the smell was strong enough to make you sick. I can’t even describe that smell. It’s like we’ve been hiding bodies kindofsmell. So of course we drop all the bags and start looking for what’s causing it, and sure enough, as soon as Josh opens the freezer blood just pours out. (The meat we had stored was what people had given us from farms, so it wasn’t wrapped in plastic like the kind from a grocery store. It was in the freezer paper, and little baggies. That’s why there was so much blood-because there was nothing to contain it.) There is blood everywhere. It ran from the freezer to the fridge so it was all down the walls, and it’s pooled up under and around the fridge on our garage floor. I think we may end up having to get rid of the entire thing to get rid of that smell. Over the weekend we removed all the meat, and spent quite some time dousing everything in bleach. Did it help the smell? Not at all! But we still haven’t cleaned underneath it yet, so I think Josh is planning on doing that tonight. One on our neighbors suggested leaving an open bag of charcoal. He said the charcoal should absorb the smell, and then you can just toss it when the smell is gone. So we’ll definitely be trying that!

Tomorrow I should be able to post the first couple of days of our trip with pictures for you guys to see! And I’ll try to get caught up on blogs if I have time at work today!